Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Crustacean Rainfall

On April 28, at the Summit residential development in La Jolla, California, it rained shrimp. Real shrimp. From the clouds. According to Bob Burhans, Scripps Institution of Oceanography curator, the shrimp were sucked up by wind to be dropped over the land. From the San Diego Tribune:

When the weather gets rough, juvenile shrimp at the ocean surface tend to gather in large numbers in the shallows, Burhans explains.

"There were warnings of potential sea spouts a couple of hours before that storm came in," says Burhans, adding that a sea spout can travel a mile or two, or even farther.